


Why I Love You

by AtowncalledMalec



Series: Shadowhunter One Shots [6]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV), malec - Fandom
Genre: A conversation that should have been had, Alec Lightwood Deserves Nice Things, Alec singing for Magnus, Angst, Communication, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feelings, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Magnus Bane Deserves Nice Things, Memories, Piano, Working things out, let them be happy, set after 3x06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 03:07:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16823899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtowncalledMalec/pseuds/AtowncalledMalec
Summary: “We never  answered that question, did we?” Alec asked with a small, tight smile, once again raising his hand when he felt Magnus’ grip loosen slightly. He silently wondered if Magnus was expecting him to let go.“Don’t do that, don’t ask yourself why I would love you,” Alec said, bringing his hand up to Magnus’ cheek, cupping it to tilt Magnus’ head so he could look him in the eye. “I see you, Magnus. Why do you do that? Why do doubt yourself so much?” he asked.“Maybe we are too different,” Magnus said, preparing himself with his words, even as his body fought to stay within the reach of Alec’s hand.***That conversation with Underhill, at the Hunter's Moon, has had Alec thinking. Maybe he and Magnus are different, that isn't always a bad thing.The characters belong to cassie clare and Flopfail.The song belongs to the phenomenal Hozier.





	Why I Love You

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Shrike](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/437392) by Hozier. 



> I was minding my own business, listening to Shrike by Hozier when I was attacked by how perfectly it fit Malec's story, just begging to be written. 
> 
> This is the conversation Malec need to have about immortality, their differences and how one man can save another with something as small as belief.
> 
> Here ☝️ is a link to the beautiful song, I suggest listening to it, it's stunning.
> 
> I didn't create any of lyrics that Alec sings, they all come from Hozier. All of the words in bold italics are lyrics.

  
  


Alec drew in a deep breath as he approached Magnus’ study. He paced the floor, outside of the room, as he tried to squash his nerves down. It had been a while since something as simple as words had made him feel this nervous.

Of course, the fluttering of his heart, the shortness of breath, the clenching of his stomach, those feelings were nothing new when it came to Magnus. The Warlock could sweep him off of his feet with nothing but a look and a heartfelt endearment. But the question, the one they had asked themselves, had gone unanswered for too long.

The fact that the question needed answering and the truth of the words that he had prepared gave him the courage to quash his fears, nothing had ever felt as right as those words. Taking another breath, Alec halted his pacing to knock, entering the room when Magnus called for him.

“I didn’t hear the front door going… Alexander, are you okay?” Magnus asked when Alec pushed through the door to his study. While he welcomed the surprise of Alec stopping by in the middle of the day, the slightly paler than usual tone of Alec’s face had his gut lurching for some reason.

“I’m fine, I just wanted… needed to talk to you,” Alec replied, waving Magnus back into his chair when he saw that Magnus was about to rise. He crossed the room and perched himself on the edge of Magnus’ desk to look down at him.

“Okay, would you like something to drink?” Magnus asked, unsure of whether he was about to summon a cup of chamomile or a stiff martini. It was rare for Alec to visit him when he should be at the institute, it was rarer still that Alec looked so affected by something.

“No, thank you, I wanted to talk to you about something that occurred to me a couple of weeks ago,” Alec said, unfolding his arms to take Magnus’ hand in his own. “When you didn’t come to dinner with my mom, I got very drunk and had a conversation with a friend, a conversation that I haven’t been able to put out of my head since.”

“Alec, I didn’t miss that dinner on purpose. I wanted to be at the Hunter's Moon…” Magnus cut off when Alec raised a hand.

“It’s not about that. This is about you and me, about a question we once asked but never answered, about our past and our future and the uncertainty of time,” Alec said, giving Magnus’ hand a squeeze to assure him he wasn’t mad.

“Do you remember when we came back here after our first date? Do you remember what I asked you?” Alec asked after another breath. He could see the way Magnus’ eyes had hardened for a moment, at the mention of time, the mention of the problem’s that they hadn’t really worked through.

Alec understood the hardening of Magnus’ expression even as it faded. The subject had Magnus guarding himself, guarding the heart that he had spent too long closing away. It wasn’t the easiest subject to talk about, nor was the question.

“You asked if maybe I thought we were too different,” Magnus said quietly, wondering if this was the moment Alec was going to tell him that yes, they were too different and that Alec would leave him, as the other’s had over the centuries.

Magnus knew it was irrational, that Alec loved him, that Alec had told him time and again that he wasn’t going anywhere. But how many times could you give your heart, your eyes, your immortal soul to another, just to have them thrust it back at you before it became too hard to believe that the inevitable wouldn’t happen yet again?

_ I’m the half demon, the monster. Why would anyone waste a mortal existence on me with all of my flaws? My father was right, I am his son. The rest of them proved it to me, every time. _

“We never answered that question, did we?” Alec asked with a small, tight smile, once again raising his hand when he felt Magnus’ grip loosen slightly. He silently wondered if Magnus was expecting him to let go.

“Don’t do that, don’t ask yourself why I would love you,” Alec said, bringing his hand up to Magnus’ cheek, cupping it to tilt Magnus’ head so he could look him in the eye. “I see you, Magnus. Why do you do that? Why do doubt yourself so much?” he asked.

“Maybe we  _ are _ too different,” Magnus said, preparing himself with his words, even as his body fought to stay within the reach of Alec’s hand.

“I’ve thought about that question, about all of our questions, and what they mean, what the answers are, for weeks. I’ve asked myself how to answer them, how to convey the words. The thing is, every time I tried to prepare a speech, it wouldn’t come,” Alec said, brushing his thumb over Magnus’ lips when Magnus opened them to speak.

“We are different,” Alec said, staring into Magnus’ eyes. His hold on Magnus’ face tightened, his thumb sweeping across Magnus’ cheek. “And that’s exactly why I love you. You’re the opposite of me. You’re everything that I ever needed to complete me, to make one whole person out of the broken pieces,” he said.

“I thought you said you couldn’t come up with a speech,” Magnus said, his stomach refusing to remain in one place at Alec’s words.

“That wasn’t it, although, it was the truth. Could you make us a portal?” Alec asked, shaking his head with minimal eye rolling.

Magnus looked up at Alec, craning his head back to look into the Shadowhunters eyes. He had never felt hope as wildly as it ran through him now, even through his confusion. It sang through every cell of his body.

Magnus stood up, his heart stuttering when Alec’s grip on his hand tightened, and waved one arm, creating a portal.

Alec tugged on Magnus’ hand, pulling him through the portal and stepping out into the entrance hall of Magnus’ apartment in Paris.

Magnus frowned when he realised that Alec had guided him to his Parisian apartment. He followed Alec across the grand hallway, curiosity eating at him when Alec let go of his hand and dragged a chair towards the baby grand piano beneath the wide, curving, marble staircase.

Alec pushed a confused looking Magnus into the plush navy blue velvet chair before taking his place behind the piano, pushing the lid up before he looked up at Magnus.

“It’s been a few years since I've really played, so I might be a bit rusty but I wrote this for you,” Alec said, taking his sheet music out of his pocket and setting it on the stand above the keys.

“You saved me, Magnus. It’s the only way I could think of to tell you all the reasons, no matter how different we may be, why I love you,” Alec said before his fingers found the keys.

Magnus sat back in his chair, speechless that Alec would write something for him. He had only ever heard Alec play once, on this piano when he had shown Alec the apartment. But he hadn’t known that Alec could write music too. He watched as Alec’s fingers danced across the keys before a rich baritone filled the echoing hallway, Alec’s voice, a full octave below the key he was playing.

**_“I couldn’t utter my love when it counted, Ah, but I’m singing like a bird, ‘bout it now. I couldn’t whisper when you needed it shouted. Ah, but I’m singing like a bird, ‘bout it now,”_ **

Magnus was instantly transported back to the days when Alec had denied him, time and time again as he listened to Alec’s beautiful voice. How Alec had insisted that he was just confused, and how much he had wanted Alec to admit his feelings. The fact that Alec finally  _ had _ admitted it, was something Magnus was thankful for every day.

**_“And I had no idea on what ground I was founded, all of that goodness is going with you now. Then when I met you my virtues uncounted, all of my goodness is going with you now,”_ **

Alec thought as he sang, about how much Magnus had shaken his world to the core. He had barely been able to admit, even to himself, that he was gay, that he liked men. Because of Magnus, he had realised that there was nothing wrong with that, that he was free to be himself.

**_“I fled to the city with so much discounted, ah but I’m flying like a bird to you now. Back to the hedgerows where bodies are mounted, ah but I’m flying like a bird to you now,”_ **

_ He had fled _ , Magnus thought. Alec had run away from who he was because it was easier, less scary than admitting the truth. Alec had run back to the clave. To an intended wife and the rules and bigoted opinions that kept people like them in the shadows, tangled in the thorns of politics and fear.

**_“I was hatched by your warmth, thus transformed. But you’re grounded and giving, darkening scorn. Remember me love, when I am reborn. As the shrike to your sharp and glorious thorn,”_ **

Alec looked into Magnus’ eyes as he sang the line. For better or for worse, Magnus had impaled his walls and his heart as surely as the bird would impale its prey.

Magnus had saved him, had set him free from a life that was never meant to be his. Magnus had shown him the way out of the shadows and brought him into the light. It had taken weeks of asking and flirting and guiding, then an ultimatum.

That had been it for Alec, the moment when he had taken that first step into the light, leaving the thorns and the lie behind and striding down the aisle to his truth. How could he not love Magnus after that?

When Magnus had told him that he wouldn’t ask again, Alec had seen it as Magnus pushing. He had long since come to realise, however, that Magnus had been protecting himself. Magnus had put his heart out there again, after so long.

**_“Driving alone, fall on your thorn. Hung like the pearl of some prey you had worn,”_ **

Magnus’ gaze dropped as he thought of the day when he had admitted to Alec about what he had done to his stepfather. The burning of the man he had called Father had been the cement he had sunk his feet into, the concrete belief that he was a monster, doomed to an eternity of loneliness, a deserved punishment.

Alec had realised that day, the moment that the words had left Magnus’ lips, and maybe even before, that Magnus was the kind of man to take each and every one of his mistakes and wear them like one of his rings or necklaces. And that Magnus would punish himself for it, even when others saw the truth of who Magnus really was.

_ Until Alexander came along.  _ The thought had a tear forming in the corner of Magnus’ eye, threatening to fall as the realisation struck that Alec wasn't just singing about himself.

_ Have I not hidden away in a city of my own making? Have I not hung the ghosts of my past before myself? I had discounted so many of my own virtues until Alec came along and pushed those ghosts aside. _

_ I was hatched by the warmth he shows only to those he cares for. I had spent so long looking at the monster that I failed to see the man that I had become, punishing myself for the smallest thing. Until Alexander came along. _

Magnus looked up into Alec’s eyes as tears swam in his own eyes. He was sure Alec had only meant the words for himself but that didn’t mean they didn’t apply to Magnus too.  _ How does he see it so clearly, and show me the way too? _

Magnus’ breath caught on the next line, the lead-like feeling that had been residing in the pit of his stomach over the last few weeks from the contention over his immortality, not so heavy.

_ “ _ **_Bite’s on above that never would form, like a cry at the final breath that is drawn. Remember me love, when I’m reborn. As a shrike to your sharp and glorious thorn,”_ **

Magnus thought of the last line as the final, poignant note hung in the air, the tear that had been hovering at the edge of his lid finally spilling over. Alec had accepted his immortality. Or maybe it was more than that. Maybe there was more to Alec's fears than growing old.

“When you told me of your fear, the fear of becoming a burden, you weren’t just talking about physically, were you?” Magnus asked, having to clear the lump from his throat to utter the words.

“Memories of what we had, of what you lost, are a weight that I don’t want you to have to carry,” Alec whispered, blinking his eyes in the vain hope that his own tears wouldn’t fall. He had made until the last lines before his voice had cracked and the tear rolling down his cheek was showing no mercy either.

“I would take a thousand bad memories for one good one of you, my love,” Magnus whispered interlocking his fingers with Alec’s and bringing their joined hands to his lips. “The good times and the hardships make up the sum of a lifetime together and I wouldn’t trade one of them for a hundred immortalities.

“Do you remember what you said to me on the day you saved me? The day I left Lydia behind?” Alec asked, smiling when the memory passed over Magnus’ face.

“You told me that even you couldn’t see the future. I don’t want to think about what if’s any more, Magnus. You were right, we need to stop living for a future that is uncertain and live for the here and now that we hold in our hands.”

“We’ll take it one day at a time, wait for the future to unfold and show us what it has in store for us,” Magnus said, smiling when Alec leaned forward and kissed him, a brief but hard touch of lips that said more than a thousand words, before pulling him into a hug.

Magnus closed his eyes, letting the last tear fall and disappear into the material of Alec’s jacket as he buried his face.

_ One day at a time, we haven't lived our future yet. _


End file.
